Abortion Provider Seeks 'Mother's Day' Gifts for Itself

(CNSNews.com) - Planned Parenthood, a major abortion provider, is soliciting Mother's Day gifts for itself.

In a May 3 e-mail blast, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's president, Cecile Richards, asked recipients to "Make a Mother's Day Gift" by donating to the organization - a solicitation that some critics say is ironic given that many Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions.

"Dear Friend, Join us! Make a Mother's Day gift. My daughter, Hannah, recently wrote this for a national magazine:

'I was raised by strong women. My mom, Cecile Richards, fights daily for women's reproductive rights and social justice as president of Planned Parenthood. It's a legacy she got from her mom (my late grandma), Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas. I've learned that the most rewarding battles in life are those waged for something you truly believe in.' ...

"... As Mother's Day approaches, I am grateful for the opportunity to make a difference and hope you'll join me. Happy Mother's Day."

John Jansen, co-director of Generations for Life, the youth outreach program for the Pro-Life Action League, in response to the e-mail, told Cybercast News Service : "I think it's ironic that an organization dedicated to helping women avoid motherhood is celebrating motherhood. It doesn't make sense. (Planned Parenthood) is the leading abortion provider in the country."

Georgette Forney, co-founder of Silence No More Awareness Campaign, a group of women and men who speak publicly about the suffering abortion has caused in their lives, also found irony in Planned Parenthood using motherhood as a marketing tool.

Forney told Cybercast News Service that her organization also sent e-mails to thousands of women she called "childless mothers," or those whose only pregnancy was ended by abortion.

"They are looking at Mother's Day with such a heart of pain," Forney said. "We wanted them to know they are not alone."

Forney said part of the process of healing from the pain abortion causes is to accept your motherhood and the child that you lost.

"You have to make peace with yourself, and your child," Forney said. "We didn't just lose a blob of tissue. We lost a child."

In another e-mail, Cecile Richards shared "some reflections on Mother's Day" by asking recipients to help fight efforts to get the U.S. federal government from giving Planned Parenthood more than $300 million a year under its Title X family planning program, and in particular the campaign spearheaded by the conservative Family Research Council.

"The extreme right-wing Family Research Council (FRC) will deliver petitions to the White House with the express goal of totally defunding 'groups like Planned Parenthood,'" she wrote. "What's worse ... the Bush Administration ... will be inside to receive them with open arms."

FRC President Tony Perkins said of the e-mail, "Allegations of fraud, reports of statutory rape cover-ups, the documented racism of several state branches, and clinic deficiencies are pushing leaders' support for Planned Parenthood to the brink. If President Bush agrees, U.S. funds would no longer be used to promote and facilitate abortion."

"Instead," Perkins said, "federally-supported 'family planning' clinics would be completely separate from abortion services. Perhaps then Richards would stop and reflect on what Mother's Day truly means to millions of would-be moms who, because of her clinics, will never hold the child whose life ended inside the clinic walls."